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October 4, 2024 - 1:25pm
Antony Blinken’s recent op-ed in Foreign Affairs is one of the most exceptional pieces of fiction I’ve read in a long time. Its account of the past four years is so detached from reality that it seems to be plucked straight out of a bad direct-to-video Hollywood movie. The plot goes more or less as follows: years of poor leadership have left the US weakened and divided, which emboldens the Bad Guys — Russia, China, Iran and North Korea — to team up and launch an unprecedented threat on the “free, open, secure, and prosperous world that the United States and most countries seek”, sowing chaos and violence in the hope of plunging the world into a New Dark Age.
But their evil plans are thwarted when the countries of the Free World, led by the US and its valiant newly-elected president Joe Biden, succeed in putting aside their differences to jointly fight back and re-establish peace and stability in Ukraine, the Middle East, the Asia-Pacific and elsewhere. The story ends with a bit of a cliffhanger. The US-led Free World has succeeded for now in foiling the Bad Guys’ plans for world domination — “The Biden administration’s strategy has put the United States in a much stronger geopolitical position today than it was four years ago”, our narrator tells us — but they haven’t been defeated yet…
It makes for an entertaining read. But equally, is Blinken really unaware of the fact that the Biden administration’s foreign policy stands out as the most hawkish and reckless since the George W. Bush era? The world is certainly more geopolitically volatile than it was four years ago.
On Ukraine, regardless of whether or not one thinks America made poor decisions which provoked Russia, the Biden administration arguably dashed all opportunities for a negotiated settlement to the conflict. It has instead opted to use Ukraine as a proxy to fight Russia, in what is rapidly escalating into a direct, potentially nuclear Nato-Russia war. It is also alleged to have been directly involved in, or at least allowed, the bombing of the Nord Stream pipeline, the worst act of industrial terrorism in recent European history.
In the Middle East, the White House cast away the promised renewal of the nuclear agreement with Iran by setting rigorous conditions that Washington knew Tehran could never accept. Over the past year, it has offered Israel near-unconditional political, economic and military support even in the face of the fierce assault on Gaza, thus contributing directly to the dramatic regional escalation that we are now witnessing. Meanwhile, in the Asia-Pacific, the Biden administration diluted the US’s historic commitments made in the “One China” accord with Beijing regarding Taiwan and pursued an unprecedented military build-up in the region in preparation for all-out war with China, while waging “a full-blown economic war” against the country.
The Biden administration has acted clumsily in what looks like a desperate attempt to stem the decline of US hegemony and slow down, or ideally reverse, the ongoing transition towards a multipolar system. This a rather different story from the plot of Blinken’s movie. That’s not to say that everything he writes is fictional: in some respects it is true that “the United States in a much stronger geopolitical position today than it was four years ago”.
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SubscribeHard to see how any detached observer could view the Biden presidency as anything but a catastrophe for both the US and the world.
Disasters for the US shouldn’t necessarily mean a disaster for the World, but it will because they’re going to take us all with them.
It’s a double whammy for them and the West. Simultaneously flushing any pretences of both moral and military superiority down the khazi in a single Presidency. Well done them.
Blinken does what he is told to do. He’s not a statesman; he’s a partisan.
… of the deep state
Exactly. It was Blinken who prompted Mike Morrell to come up with the ‘Hunter Biden Laptop’ letter which 51 former intelligence officials signed. It was bogus from the get go. It’s been said that Blinken had been Hunter’s minder for years, cleaning up messes, thwarting inquiries.
Yikes, Mr Fazi, when Joe Biden told Israel to “take one for the team,” was that what you call “near-unconditional political, economic and military support?” Iran’s latest attack is, I think, a direct consequence of Biden and Blinken hobbling Israel, not to mention the go-slow on delivery of promised munitions. Plus the US gives more financial aid both to Jordan and Egypt than it does to Isreal. Moreover, the aid to Israel is conditioned on it being spent on US armaments. “Near unconditional supprt,” I don’t think so.
They give aid to Egypt and Jordan to prop up pro-Israeli dictatorships. Egypt helps blockade Gaza and Jordan helped shoot down Iranian missiles. So even the aid given to countries other than Israel is meant to help Israel.
And yet, Biden’s administration gave huge sums of money to Iran, after which Hamas promptly attacked. Just before the IDF was about to enter Rafah and finish off Hamas, Biden’s people all but ordered Israel to halt their offensive.
Neither Kamunistala nor Briben can seem to to mention antisemitism without mentioning nearly imaginary Islamaphobia, nor has the administration done much to discourage pro-Hamas, pro-Hezbollah, antisemitic protests.
I don’t know why the stalmate in Ukraine is on-going, but there’s certainly been little effort to force both parties to the negotiating table.
When you look in hard cash terms and in terms of military hardware at the support the US has given to Israel since 1948, including over the past twelve months, it is hard to disagree with Thomas Fazi. Nothing, not the Gaza slaughter, the IGC rulings, the possibility of ICC indictments, has slowed down the level of support the US has given to Israel. It is astonishing.
Eh. They should give more to Ukraine and nothing to Israel.
This is a frustrating article. On the one hand, Biden’s foreign policy record isn’t something to be proud of. On the other, the problems that he had to deal with were all inherited from earlier presidencies; they’re not the results of a unique degree of recklessness on the part of Biden per se.
That said, I don’t think these problems can be solved by a straightforward dumping of foreign commitments. The hard fact is, the US has encouraged other countries to rely on it for their defense more than it should have, and if you suddenly take that away you’re going to see predatory wars + nuclear proliferation in a lot of places, which will be a disaster for America’s commercial and security interests.
I’ve written on these topics repeatedly on my own Substack; here’s an article about why I don’t think that the small conflicts going on right now are likely to explode into any kind of world war:
https://twilightpatriot.substack.com/p/why-im-still-not-worried-about-world
And here’s one about, even though the US is more involved than it should be in foreign countries’ defense, we’ve got to be careful about how to extricate from the situation without making it worse:
https://twilightpatriot.substack.com/p/the-poland-paradox
As for the Taiwan-China thing: Saying that Taiwan isn’t a sovereign country is like saying that Bruce Jenner is a woman. Neither has any basis in reality, they’re just things that some people have got to say to lick the right boots. But nobody actually respects a boot-licker, and the fact that the US has spent the last half-century trying to appease China – rather than just helping Taiwan arm itself to the teeth – makes the situation more dangerous than it needed to be.
History may not repeat itself but it may rhyme. Do we feel lucky to try this the 3rd time? Remember who helped us end WW II. Dialing back to 2014 (or, better yet, early 1990s) the Ukraine-Russia conflict, with Ukraine declared as a neutral country, might just work this time around.
‘Newly elected President Joe Biden’.
Kept in a cellar throughout the campaign. I still want to know (and am astonished, particularly since the Trump debate, that no-one else seems to care) who is really running America and making the decisions which affect us all. Because it sure as hell ain’t Joe Biden.
The same people who have for decades…and it sure ain’t the people who are elected.
Senior politicians derive their power from, primarily, their fundraising abilities. Biden was practically owned by MBNA, a large bank in Maryland, for decades.
Legislators, then, do very little legislating. They’re primarily fundraisers. That’s their power base.
They do very little policy making, and make decisions by consulting their aides and advisors.
Aides and advisors write their speeches, test their policy proposals against polling data, write proposed legislation, brief them on domestic and international events, and, collectively, run the country.
Puppet show “democracy” will more than likely continue under annointed* Harris.
* observe calibre of DEM’s choice of puppets – jaw dropping!
Insofar as it’s any one individual, it is Barak Obama.
Surely the entire planet understands that Blinken is just a left-over Neocon, espousing Neocon policies. He has no credibility whatsoever as a diplomat seeking true resolutions of any current conflicts; yesterday’s man, who still believes that the USA can impose its will wherever it chooses, when plainly observable facts prove otherwise.
However the “gig” will no doubt enhance his wealth and social standing in fashionable US circles. The fact that he has achieved nothing will be of no consequence…except in the cruel, real world, which will have to deal with the total failure to address real problems.
Blinken was, I believe, a Harvard law classmate of Obama’s, and served as Biden’s national security advisor during the latter’s vice- presidency.
His tenure as Secretary of State was certainly not an unalloyed success. Wars broke out in eastern Europe and the Middle East, China became increasingly obstreperous, and refugee crises exploded.
He appears to be even worse at his job than Hillary Clinton, which is a very low bar to crawl under.
“In the Middle East, the White House cast away the promised renewal of the nuclear agreement with Iran by setting rigorous conditions that Washington knew Tehran could never accept.”>>> Was this a joke?
Your response is understandable. But, no. It’s actually how the world looks if you live in Faziland.
Finally a comment about this. I was wondering if anybody was gonna bring up this ridiculous statement in the article.
And the US has failed to respond to Hurricane Helene and has serious debt problems.